The documents show that, during the construction of the steel framework in the base of the the world's largest nuclear reactor, welders had no specifications as to how the welding should be properly performed for an entire year and, furthermore, tests to ensure the quality of the welding have not been carried out.

Bouygues, an Areva sub-contractor, has had no qualified welding supervisors at the site for over a year and still does not have any. Staff are given a mere two weeks’ training instead of having the international standard university degree. The company also listed people who had not worked in the role as welding supervisors.

Areva, the Finnish nuclear safety authority STUK, and the country’s electricity generator TVO have all been aware of these problems and yet the necessary vital safeguards have not been implemented. Poor welding could cause or exacerbate a nuclear accident – both the reactor cooling system and the reactor itself are mounted on the steel framework. If this is how the construction has proceeded so far, what can we expect when it comes to the installation of reactor components or electronic safety systems?

Nuclear safety expert Dr Helmut Hirsch states that there is a ‘bad safety culture’ at the Olkiluoto 3 site, calling into question the durability of the steel structure and its ability to withstand electrochemical corrosion.

How has all this happened? It looks as if these potentially catastrophic shortcomings in Finland have arisen from the parties seeking to cut corners on rocketing construction costs. Quality standards agreed in contracts between Areva and TVO are poor. Contractual requirements for the competence of welding staff look to have been breached. STUK and TVO have failed to deal with safety violations. TVO has also failed to use sanctions such as stopping construction so that failures could be addressed. It all adds up to a recipe for disaster.

It is clear that there can be little public confidence in the construction of the Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor. How and why are we to believe assurances on matters of safety from the likes of Areva now and in the future? This is yet another blow to the public relations distortion that nuclear energy is safe. The industry has shown itself - again - to be anything but open and honest in its dealings with the public.

None of us would dream of flying in a plane, driving a car, or living in a house which we knew to be built to such shockingly poor standards of construction, supervision and safety. So why should we tolerate or allow such attitudes, incompetence and deception in the construction of a nuclear facility which, in the event of an accident, could cause massive, unquantifiable damage to our health and the environment? The answer is simple: we can not and we should not.

Areva and its sub-contractors should be reminded whose interests they truly serve. Public safety should always be put before profit and poor procedures. Those responsible for this misconduct should be held to account. The construction of Olkiluoto 3 must be halted.

"None of us would dream of flying in a plane, driving a car, or living in a house which we knew to be built to such shockingly poor standards of construction, supervision and safety"But we know that precisely *because* of the paranoid safety culture surrounding nuclear power, the substandard plant is still going to be built to vastly better standards of all of the above than almost anything else.
I mean, I know people who've engineered and architected major civils projects - the welding on those is not supervised by someone with a bleedin' degree in weldingology!

Sorry John, but this story (and many others like it) doesn't convince me that there's a 'paranoid safety culture surrounding nuclear power'.
The fact is these standards are there for very good reasons. Adhering to them is surely the *minimum* requirement.

I mean, I know people who've engineered and architected major civils projects - the welding on those is not supervised by someone with a bleedin' degree in weldingology!John, I've project-managed a number of such projects (never close to the scale of a nuclear power-plant of course, but I've built a few factories). It's true we didn't have someone "with a degree in weldingology" supervising every weld. But I don't think anyone has claimed that's necessary.
What we did have was strict specifications for the type of weld to be used in each instance, as well as a shift-rotation to ensure that every welder's work was double-checked by another. And that's just to build a soft-drinks plant. I'd expect a far more rigorous regime of safety-checks when building the world's largest nuclear power station.
If it is true that the welders on this project were not working to specifications, and no double / safety checking has been carried out for an entire year, then that's frankly disgraceful and to suggest otherwise is to seriously underestimate the importance (from a health & safety standpoint) of adhering to strict building-standards when it comes to industry.
The worst industrial accident I ever had to deal with during my time as an engineer was a result of a combination of two factors; one of them was badly-welded pipework.

I'm curious as to the legal culture surrounding contractors and subcontractors in Finland. As well as the rates of construction booms pressuring that sector. It seems to me in Canada that construction booms in B.C. led to highrise condo's with leaky windows in downtown Vancouver and fly-by-night roofers here and there, with horror stories I have heard first hand from people in that rainy part of the country. These were backed up by a person I met who worked for such a shady roofing operation. How annoying and disappointing for the buyers. But the boom and the pressure to build left no time for proper hiring or inspection or licencing in some cases.
Minimum safety requirements should be the very least (I'd prefer they didn't bother to build these things in the first freakin' place). The havoc caused from leaky things or a loose foundation in this case would be more than disappointing to say the least...we all have our own imaginations we can extend to our human knowledge of these occurances, I think.

[*Edited to remove personal abuse - let's keep it civil please everyone. Thanks from Justin*]
Ive worked on one of the largest projects in the world in Ft Mcmurray ,Alberta, as a pipefitter building an oil refinery,and every weld has to be welded to a certain specification depending on the pipe , pressures and commodity the pipe will carry !!!!Every welder has to go to school to learn how to weld and every welder is tested by the government to make sure he can weld to the specifications in question.Most welds are x-rayed to make sure the quality has been achieved and everything is double checked and triple checked,this is why we have an apprenticeship program and government red seal exams to certify we meet the journeyman qualifications.I did a 4 yr apprenticeship which included 6 months of schooling .

Let's assume that the welding isn't a big deal. But the fact that it's a nuclear plant -- not just some ordinary factory building -- shouldn't we leave leave nothing to chance that could compromise safety?
When the Manhattan Project scientists were building the bomb in the 1940s, they were already worried about the implications of the technology that they were building. We're paying for that now even after the end of the Cold War.